Good. This is by far the world cup I've been less excited about, both because it counts as whitewash for the Qatar government and for how corrupt FIFA is.
Now I have no issues with restricting alcohol and even banning it, but with that last minute about face after taking money from that company, I think they are at least do a refund plus interest.
In fact they should have announced long time ago. More people would have attended the games.
Episodes of violence in world cups are few and far between.
The drinking brits would like to know how you came to that conclusion.
So the pictures of drinking brits fighting is actually from a rugby event? Who knew. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-59402277
So, no children in restaurants for dinner for example? Or family & friends barbecues? Or weddings? New Year's celebrations?
> The drinking brits would like to know how you came to that conclusion.
I live in the UK. Most people I know here drink, ranging from seldom and socially to frequent binges. I know perhaps one or two that I've seen become even slightly violent, and it's usually followed by an insurmountable amount of apologies and feelings of shame.
It should be refund + costs + damages.
The Qatari debacle is more focused though, because the controversy is directly affecting the players and the spectators (in particular the schedule shift and the alcohol row)
Being more upset at lacking alcohol at a sports event over being upset at the existence of concentration camps in China is quite something. There is some palpable hypocrisy that's apparent if one holistically compares the coverage.
Developed countries do not want to host the Olympics anymore. By the time the 2022 selection was over, the only other candidate was Almaty, which isn’t less problematic and had a protest violently suppressed by Russian forces in January right before the 2022 Olympics.
The World Cup had Australia, South Korea, Japan and the US bidding to host 2022.
Was it implied that it is different?
The "problem" story is much cleaner in Qatar though: the migrant worker abuses are alleged in building the venues.
In contrast, China and Russia have complicated problem stories about camps in places people can't visit, or about graft and murky military movements. Tougher for the public to get into. So maybe that's why you didn't see all the stories and posts about them.
Chinese Olympics where properly handled, ditto for Russian Winter Olympics (at least as far as I remember).
Qatar didn't at all. They promised a lot of things to FIFA and then went back on a lot of them.
Promised that the cup could be held in summer, we ended up doing it in winter (while forcing all the national and international competitions to adapt their scheduled.
They promised people could drink alcohol, went back on that two days before the beginning.
Promised proper accomodations for the fans, nope.
The list is longer but I think I gave the idea.
A world cup is not just the matches themselves. It's the fans, it's the atmosphere. It's the tradition. If you're not going to respect that, you shouldn't host them.
I don't blame only them though, half of the blame is of FIFA. I realize that there is always corruption going on in such events (although I don't like it), but I would expect the money not to be the ONLY thing that matters. Instead, this such a case.
Don't get me wrong, some of the criticisms of Qatari policies esp. regarding migrant workers is perfectly valid, but seeing the criticism coming from certain groups that are actively being apologetic for worse crimes[0] reeks of dishonest motivations.
[0] https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apart...
Most of the FIFA officials involved have been indicted for a while.
That being said, I don't care who will be World Champion 2022. Nor will I watch a single match.
The countries that need a whitewash are the ones that have really bad human rights abuse (or, in this case, a country that let tens of thousands of people die building the very same stadiums that are being used). That's not related to being white in any systematic way
Why would a country build stadiums to whitewash the deaths of labours during the construction of stadiums?
It is the same system British designed to control colonies: carrot and stick, weaken them, make sure they are dependent on you, and then you control it. Would west boycott energy from the middle east? Almost all resources in middle east are controlled by western companies one way or another. The media and government play different roles to serve the same purpose, to control the world.
Don't be fooled.